re: Disagreement with AppraisalPosted by Lsut81 on 2/7/13 at 1:09 pm to Sigma

quote:We're refinancing and trying to avoid PMI. The appraisal came back lower than we would have liked,

Dealt with the exact same thing a year ago...

quote:Do I have any recourse in disputing the appraisal outside of just canceling the refi?

Advice I was given and it worked was to call the appraiser and talk to him directly. Explain what you are trying to do and where you think that he may have overlooked something. Maybe a measurement or a comp. Even asked that if you send him a few other comps, would he take a look and think about using them in his figures.

He ended up taking a look, admitting he could change a few things, and did so. Said that he was much more open to it since it was a refi and not a sale.

re: Disagreement with AppraisalPosted by Sigma on 2/7/13 at 1:17 pm to Lsut81

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately, we were told by the mortgage company that we couldn't see the appraisal prior to their reviewing it, so it has already sort of gone through. Can the appraiser change things at this point?

re: Disagreement with AppraisalPosted by Lsut81 on 2/7/13 at 1:24 pm to Sigma

quote:Unfortunately, we were told by the mortgage company that we couldn't see the appraisal prior to their reviewing it, so it has already sort of gone through. Can the appraiser change things at this point?

My mortgage guy was cool as shit, so he may have done things differently.

But he sent me a copy of it, I looked at it and told him there were errors, thats when he tried to take care of it himself and got shut down. He had to send a formal request to the appraisal company to have it looked at.

He then told me that he couldn't do anything, but I could call the guy and just talk to him man to man. I did that and asked if I could email him the diagram where I think he made errors and then send over a few other comps that I thought were more appropriate. He agreed to take a look.

After looking, he said "Ok, I can do that for you, but you need to formally submit a request for me to change it". So my guy had to do what he originally did and submit the request, the guy then made the corrections and returned it.

Like I said, you just have to be genuine with the appraiser and say something like "I know this isn't my profession and you are a lot more experienced, but I think there may be a few issues in the appraisal and I was hoping you could look at them since we really need to get to X dollars on our refi" Make sure he knows that it isn't for a sale, that it is for you.

Same here on our refi... It did not really affect anything but just pissed me off. We totally redid the workshop and made it a media room... about 600SF. He did not even add a line item for a comp on the appraisal even though every realtor we asked said it should be a special comp probably adding 20K to the cost of the house.

re: Disagreement with AppraisalPosted by Poodlebrain on 2/8/13 at 2:52 am to Sigma

Apraisers no longer have to keep finance companies happy to get referral work. And they know they are unlikely to get sued for appraising a property too low, whereas overstating the value can leave them exposed to law suits. Thus, they choose to err on the side of caution.

The problem is that many appraisers are just plain lazy. They do not look for unique features of properties, or circumstances of sales, that distinguish them from comps, and every piece of property is unique, as is every sale.

quote:Apraisers no longer have to keep finance companies happy to get referral work.

Yup, they are just put into a random drawing or whatever...

That is one thing that my guy had warned me about when we were trying to come up with a solution. He said "We know what the property is worth, so you can pay another $400 and we can order another appraisal, but there is a chance that we could get the same company and same guy"

Oh, and just thought about this... I got royally fricked when I sold my last house. Appraiser came back 20k under what the buyer and I agreed on. My agent and the buyers agent both called and cussed him out, told him he was WAY off. They were absolutely as furious as I was. He eventually raised it around 12k, but I lost out on 8k because of him.

quote:Apraisers no longer have to keep finance companies happy to get referral work. And they know they are unlikely to get sued for appraising a property too low, whereas overstating the value can leave them exposed to law suits. Thus, they choose to err on the side of caution.

You are 100% correct, AMC's are now obligated to report appraisers when and if there are issues. At the end of the day its an opinion of value, given by someone who doesn't want to get sued or know there are 3 or 4 more sets of eyes that are going to reveiw their work. Underwriters have also required addtional things which hinder the appraisers adjustments. It's really sad having to tell a person the appraisal they received today is an accurate picture of their homes value and the one issued back in 2009 was way off.